After years of development through the Internet, the domain name system has become an important part of the Internet. The domain name system also has real world implications on issues such as censorship, domain name confiscation, and user privacy.
The domain name system for the Internet is sometimes referred to as the Internet Domain Name System (INDS). INDS serves as a distributed database that maps domain names and IP addresses and vice versa, making it easier for users to access the Internet. The primary role of a domain name system is resolving domain names, for example, mapping a human-friendly (e.g., human-readable) name of a computer or a group of computers on the Internet into a corresponding machine-readable IP address. A domain name system may be a distributed hierarchical system that includes a root domain; the next level under the root domain is called the top-level domain. For example, the top-level domain for the country of the People's Republic of China is “.cn.”
Various technical challenges exit, however. For example, the current domain name system is a fully centralized system. The domain name root servers are managed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) authorized by the United States. In order to improve the efficiency of domain name resolution, ICANN has deployed many root servers and mirror servers globally; the world's only primary root server is located in the United States.
The centralized control of the domain name system has also resulted in various technical difficulties and communication outages. The failure of the top-level domain name server in Iraq and the failure of the top-level domain name server in Libya are typical examples of such outages. Due to the lack of control over the root domain name server and the vulnerability of the domain name system itself, security risks are also present.
A decentralized domain name system may reduce or eliminate these technical problems.